Thursday 1 September 2016

Day 6: Edmond OK - Elk City OK

No signs concerning BACON this morning.  And no BACON either chiz.  Perhaps the locals have a money-making scheme going on similar to the EU subsidy payable for farming no pigs.  Or something.  Nice cheese omelettes though.

I should have mentioned Vlad the Impala and Mustang Sally earlier.  They rocked up at the hotel in Joplin in separate cars1 and immediately engaged in a prolonged game of tonsil hockey before checking in.  Both were on first-name terms with the staff.  Every time I nipped out the back for a smoke there they were again, snogging like the teenagers they clearly weren't.  Now there may be a completely innocent and rational explanation for this but I'm already hearing a country song involving an illicit affair, Mustang Sally's husband and a snub-nosed .38 revolver.


Anyway, this morning the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle and it was actually possible to see the deck of the footbridge over the water feature next to the car park.  First stop was supposed to be the memorial to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, but someone had hidden it, or replaced it with a multi-storey car park, or perhaps it was just very small.  But that's why there are no pictures.  Of it.  Not far away, though, there is some interesting architecture, FSVO "interesting".

The T-Mobile shop of the August Moon
No, not that one, you clot.  This one:
Golden Dome, Oklahoma City
This is probably the result of a bet with Buckminster Fuller that he could build something even more stupid than the Dymaxion car.  I don't know what it was for, but the parking lot around it is mostly closed off and there was a homeless chap camped out on the doorstep.  Plus it's probably full of water anyway - a leaky roof being the USP of geodesic domes.  There's a tallish building very much the same colour a block away which appears actually to be in use.

There is also a Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City, where there is an exhibit which allows the visitor to try to hit a fibreglass cow's arse2
.  I didn't visit it.  So, farewell then, Okie City.  Back into the rural bits 4 teh LOLZ, bridges, dodging of heavy showers and so forth.

Got any bread?
So, just crossed the South Canadian River.  That looked like an interesting bridge, I thought, so decided to turn round and go back for another look.  About two and a half hours later and a hundred dollars lighter of pocket I was able to take this photo:
BRIDGE!!1!
having rather carelessly dropped the Ratmobile into the ditch while attempting the manoeuvre.  A passing Nice Man with a pickup had a chain, but neither of us could figure out anywhere to which it could be attached without destroying whatever it was attached to.  He gave me a lift to the local Chevy dealer3; they in turn rang Justin "Tiger" Tillman who showed up with his sturdy wrecker and who, with the aid of some lateral thinking4, successfully restored the Ratmobile to terra firma, albeit with the sorely abused right rear wheel so full of mud that it's way out of balance and causes teeth to come loose at 70 mph.  Note to self: find jet wash in the morning.
Omnes: But tell us, ML Maire, what did teh R66 look liek in teh old days, eh?
ML Maire: Very much liek this.
Two vehicles wide and made out of that vile bumpy concrete beloved of fascist dictators and the bit of the Highways Agency responsible for the M25 near Potters Bar.  Eventually this led to Clinton, where they have a wik museum and where I was able to purchase a copy of Jerry McLanahan's "EZ66 - Route 66 Guide For Travelers" for only nineteen of your Earth dollars.  This is the fourth edition, which the Mega-Global Big River Corporation of Seattle, USAnia do not sell in BRITAIN.  Moreover, the few chancers flogging used copies of the third edition tend to ask about twenty-five quid for it and can therefore get tae fck.
That'll polish out...
I had a Dinky one of them ^^^^ as a small Mr Larrington, though it was mostly yellow.

I had hoped to reach Amarillo today but obv the time spent as Ditchfinder General put paid to that.  Instead I am in Elk City, some three days' swim forty miles from the Texas border.  While Texas has a deserved rep for being very very big (it is the thick end of 900 miles on I-10 from the Sabine River on the Louisiana state line to New Mexico west of El Paso) the bit just down the road from here is only 180 miles across so should be polished off tomorrow.  Stay tuned, Scorching Plains
 fans!

Edit: I have just been for a wander around the Wolmart next door because I needed a pint of milk and am horrified to learn that rabid right-wing carpet-muncher Ann Coulter - a woman so deranged she makes Melanie Phillips look like the Last Bastion of Rational Thought - has written a book:
In Trump We Trust - E Pluribus Awesome
Look, I didn't touch it, OK?  I don't need to go through decontamination when I get to the next international frontier, so please put down the wire brush and the Dettol.
  1. An Impala and a Mustang, obv.
  2. Lie
  3. Big ups to Wheeler Chevrolet of Hinton OK.
  4. Attach one end of steel cable to three tons of Detroit iron in the form of a Ford F-550 and the other to a webbing loop wrapped round a spoke of the front wheel.  Pull.

8 comments:

  1. Mr. Larrington, It took me two days to cross the narrow part of Okla-by-God-homa back when I did that part of USAnia by wonder bike. Same weather problems but it is easier keeping two wheels out of the mud than four. Be glad the Tornadoes are giving you a miss... so far.

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    Replies
    1. There was some poor sod out in it on a motorbike yesterday...

      Delete
  2. I'm always relieved that Mr. Fuller preferred to be known as Buckminster rather than by his first name. D'you occasionally wish Mr. Cardboard Box had had some other option?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (Googles MR RB Fuller)

      Ah, yes, I see what you mean.

      Delete
  3. Enjoying the annual build up to Battle Mountain. Thanks for your report! I have a technical question: what (Twitter) # will everyone be using?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Steve,

      Twitter. That's one of those new-fangled social wossnames, isn't it? I've no idea but will try to find out.

      Delete
    2. Professor Lord Sir Chief Timekeeper Jun Nogami suggests #WHPSC or #WHPSC2016. I have no idea whether these will have any effect.

      Delete

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